Erika Cohn, who co-directed (with Tony Vainuku) the Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens doc In Football We Trust, went from the gridiron in Utah to the Shari’a courts of Palestine for her follow-up film The Judge, the story of the first-ever female judge in Palestine’s religious courts. The film is “a welcome femme-empowered portrait of an inspirational female … READ MORE

You know German filmmakers Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block are sharp-minded characters when you learn they work collaboratively under the label “Laokoon,” named after the legendary Trojan seer Laocoön who in Greek mythology revealed the Trojan Horse as a dangerous fraud. In their works, Riesewieck and Block aim to reveal the Trojan horses of our … READ MORE

In 2018, after much debate and controversy, Facebook finally published its censorship policies. All 27 pages of them. The move, wrote the LA Times, “adds a new degree of transparency to a process that users, the public and advocates have criticized as arbitrary and opaque.” But as explored in the Independent Lens film The Cleaners, … READ MORE

Before there was Dawnland, the eye-opening and timely new film premiering November 5 on Independent Lens, there was First Light, a shorter version of the same story about the forced separation of Native American children that helped lead to the trust necessary to tell the expanded story of Dawnland. Those two films by Boston-based director Adam … READ MORE

Fallen firefighter Robert E. Caldwell, a Granite Mountain hotshot who perished in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, said to a comrade, “I’d rather die in my boots than live in a suit.” It would seem one would have to have that mentality to purposely choose such a dangerous vocation. It is a calling, but … READ MORE

Filmmaker Alex Jablonski and his filmmaking partner Khalil Hudson had quite the arduous, smoke-filled journey to make the film Wildland. The documentary premieres on Independent Lens Monday, Oct. 29. Alex told us that Wildland started with a question: How do young men grow up? “We always wanted to tell a story about wildland firefighters but it was … READ MORE

The News & Documentary Emmy Awards were presented on Monday, October 1, 2018, in a ceremony at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City, an event attended by more than 1,000 television and news media industry executives, news and documentary producers and journalists. Independent Lens was pleased to learn that … READ MORE

There’s something about a paperback book, that fading feel of a flexible, tangible book, of buying one used and finding weird notes scribbled in the margins, the musty smell after it sat in a garage, or an old bookstore, There’s something about the fact that we will keep certain books around despite them having water … READ MORE

In trying times, we turn to food. Especially comfort food, recipes from childhood, from our families, that warm our spirits and send us back to simpler times. We reached out to some of the participants and filmmakers behind a diverse array of Independent Lens films for their own favorite comfort food recipes, and got some … READ MORE

It may be presumptuous to state this but I will take a chance: I’m likely not the only one out there these days feeling the pull of anxiety. And thus I was motivated to take a personal journey to find relief from stress and anxiety by using technology, taking all of you along with me, … READ MORE

It’s that time of the year again: Now that Independent Lens has concluded another season, we need you to vote for the recipient of this year’s Audience Award. Yes you, the audience! Vote for your favorite documentary from 2017-2018’s award-winning slate of films, and this year you can pick from up to three choices. Which … READ MORE

As far as I’m concerned, soccer is a year-round sport. I can find a footie game on the telly from somewhere in the world anytime I want, but the World Cup is the every-four-year event that makes even superficial fans take a keen interest. This year’s World Cup is happening in Russia, and although my … READ MORE